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A Prayer for Freedom from Things that Still Bind Us

     Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”  John 11:43-44

     Dear Lord Jesus, as surely as you called out to a dead Lazarus, and he walked out of his tomb fully alive, so when you called out to me in the gospel, I too was raised from the dead, and made fully alive in you. By your grace, I’ve already passed from death to life, and from being condemned to being declared righteous. For the sovereign grace and the resurrection power of the gospel, I praise you today. Indeed, salvation is of the Lord!

     Yet as surely as Lazarus needed to be freed from his grave clothes, so do I, Lord Jesus. The smell and signs of death still cling to me. There are many areas of my life for which I long for greater freedom.

     Jesus, I want greater freedom from being impacted by people’s opinions of me. I want to respond to trying situations and difficult people with grace and wisdom, rather than reacting with complaining and irritation. I want to see and value in others, what you treasure. I want to be quicker to pray and slower to fret.

     I want my indifference to be replaced with good listening. I want passivity to be replaced with passion. I want to be free from the toxic shame that often paralyzes my heart. I want to know what stuff from my past still needs to be dealt with, and what stuff simply needs to be left till the Day your return. I want to be bolder in sharing the gospel and slower to circulate gossip.

     I want to sit still longer and laugh louder. I want to age grace-fully, not regretfully. I want to live as fully alive as possible to the only love that is better than life—your love for us, Lord Jesus. Free me. So very Amen I pray, in your peerless and priceless name.

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